Word 2013: Clear The Clutter

If you find the look of Word 2013 to be just a little cluttered in comparison to pre- Office 2007 versions, I’ve got some tips that just might help. Since I write for a living, I spend a lot of time using Word. With the ribbon turned on and all of the options in view, it can be difficult to find the simple commands you need every day. Here’s how to fix that in just a few clicks.

Let’s start out with your basic view with the ribbon (the large menu at the top of the screen) turned on. All those options can look just a little busy.

At the top right of the screen you’ll see an icon that looks like a square with an arrow in it.

When you click that icon, you’ll see options for viewing the ribbon.

If you select Show tabs, the ribbon will disappear from the document and you will be left with the tabs that will allow you to navigate to menus for design, review, mailing etc… should you need them. The document already looks cleaner.

You could also choose Auto-hide Ribbon.

Your document will look like this:

If you need access to menu buttons, just click the little icon that looks like three dots at the top of the page.

Like that cleaner look, but still want some menu buttons handy? Not a problem, you can easily customize your quick access tool bar at the top of the page. Just choose the little drop-down arrow in the upper left of the page.

You’ll see options to choose commonly used commands to add to your tool bar.

Here, I’ve added Save, New Document, Spell Check and Open.

Select More commands to find your most frequently used actions.

There’s a long list to choose from and what you add will depend on your particular needs. I’m adding Font and Font Size. But if you frequently add tables to documents or want the option to e-mail with one click, you can find it here.

Here’s a view of what a default document looks like for me with no ribbon and my favorite commands added to the quick access tool bar.